“Well that could have gone better” Shimmer noted, poking her rice pudding with limited enthusiasm within the rather gaudy grand royal feast hall. There so many gilded carvings and whatnot that it almost hurt to look at anything but the food in front of one self.

Raneth refused to speak to anyone for the rest of the evening, giving the circle ample time to fill Sully in on what they had learned and send him and Shimmer off to retrieve the families of the saboteurs under the cover of darkness. The deal Cash had struck with the saboteurs was that they would testify about who had made them sink the barges once their families were safe – not to Raneth – but to the local guild representatives… sure he could have forced it out of them via charms, but this made it easier to convince others about the truth.

“Let’s see them wiggle out of that – pissing off the guild’s salt factor’s is not wise, especially when you depend on the guild for food imports” Cash had noted while gleefully rubbing his hooves together.

The next day Speaker, Sunrise and Cash began to tackle another issue: The lack of local government officials and Raneth’s one-sentence-for-all solution.

First up there was the judge that Sunrise had met with: Evidently he had been attacked by an assassin a few days ago, though he had managed to fend the attacker off and make it home in… roughly one piece.

“Ok, let’s do this one quick – we don’t know when Sully and Shimmer will be back, but with her flying I’m guessing by nightfall, so Speaker I want your lie detection charm up all the time and Sunrise, I want you ready to lighten the mood… being the last judge in the city where all your colleagues have fled and your new ruler is a murder-happy tyrant can’t be fun” Cash quickly and quietly instructed before they knocked on the judge’s door.

The judge’s home, in the nicer part of Plenilune, where all the houses where covered in colorful well-cut wooden facades painted in salt-resistant alchemical paints, and the roofs covered in ceramic tiles, was just as one would imagine a northern home: Warm, the walls covered in family tapestries and furs. There were several hearths each with a roaring fire: One in the kitchen, one in the dining room, one in the judge’s home office and one in each bedroom – this was not a small house.

Upon entry the three Solars were greeted by the judge’s wife, who recognized Sunrise and instantly bid Sunrise and her friends welcome.
The judge’s wife was a well-groomed old mare dressed in nice woolen clothing lined with fine fur, and seemed quite happy that Sunrise had brought a doctor to see her husband: “So few ponies dare help us these days… we’re called traitors for not fleeing the city like the rest of the old regime’s officials”

“Well that’s not fair – and to be honest, we are working on trying to make Raneth a bit more easy to live under…” Cash said.
A young colt, barely more than three or four years old, peeked out of the kitchen: “Momma, who is it?”

“Just someone here to help your father dear, go play in your room” the old mare said kindly, the little colt bolting up the stairs.

As the judge’s wife guided the three to her husband in their bedroom, Sunrise noted to Cash – in old realm: “Maybe have Sullen Hoof cook a little something up for Raneth… and then force him to behave in exchange for the recipy?”

“A little short-sighted, but you saw how young he is – he’s younger than you – and from what I’ve heard whispered around town so far then he’s from the Haslanti League – they’re raiders from a place even further north than here. Any culture that revolves around taking stuff from those weaker than you tends to produce very rough characters, and to be honest then I suspect that Raneth didn’t grow up in a well-off part of that society. Maybe a former slave?” Cash replied as Speaker did his doctor-thing, patching up the other-wise nicely cleaned up lacerations on the judge’s forelegs and chest.

“So you think he’s overcompensating? If he grew up with nothing, gained powers and now has power over others without the wisdom to properly rule?” Sunrise mused.

Cash shrugged: “Maybe, but it feels more like he doesn’t want to look bad to the Bull – no pony wants to look stupid or incompetent to their lord – like a slave tasked with something he doesn’t quite know how to do”

The judge’s wife came into the bedroom with a trey with nice ceramic cups. The sweet scent of warm mead quickly spread around the room, and the judge groaned: “Oh Ice Lotus, you’re too good for me”

To Speaker the wine-strength alcoholic drink was far too sweet – but Cash seemed to enjoy it and Sunrise… well, she drank it. The judge’s wounds were easy enough to fix, so the Solar doctor soon turned to his friends and the judge’s wife and reported that everything was going to be ok.

“Perfect – now, Miss Ice Lotus, do any of you have any idea who would try to kill one of you?” Cash asked, knowing quite well that there was a very obvious answer, but it never hurt to ask. Maybe they had gotten threats?

The judge groaned and sat up in his bed, his large bushy beard and thin frame standing in stark contrast to each other, but beyond that then for a pony he looked quite plain: Cream-colored coat, light brown balding mane, though the bathrobe he was wearing was quite nice with little cerulean ice-crystals embroidered into its dark-grey fuzzy fabric: “Take your pick – any crook I sent to prison for the last three years since I made judge, their families if they wanted revenge, or the rest of the Saltspire league for daring to want to maintain some semblance of civilization even if our new king is a right swit”

As Cash translated what the judge had said, Speaker couldn’t help but find the judge’s candor quite amusing and refreshing.
Sunrise commented that it seemed to fit with what they had heard from the merchants earlier.

“And what about you? Any clue who might have done it?” Cash asked Ice Lotus.

Now, Speaker might not have understood what Ice Lotus replied – some flavor of “I don’t know” according to Cash – but Speaker knew quite well what his lie-detection charm was telling him…namely that she was lying.

Giving Cash a poke and gesturing for the two to step away for a moment, out of the bedroom, Speaker spoke in old realm: “Ice Lotus… she is lying”

Cash cocked an eyebrow at Speaker’s claim: “Well that makes things easier…”

The two returned to the bedroom, with Cash straight out of the gate asking: “So, Ice Lotus, did you try to get your husband killed?”

The look of shock and outrage on Ice Lotus’s face told Speaker everything – the words she shouted in fury less so… for they registered as true to Speaker, but did not exactly come off as a confession.

Cash looked at Speaker, who could only give Cash an apologetic look: “She didn’t lie there…”

The judge – understandably angry that Cash would make such a brash accusation – vigorously voiced his displeasure just as his wife had – demanding that the three leave his house at once.

Cash, trying to save face, asked: “Very well – so Ice Lotus, you know nothing of who might have attacked your husband?”
To this Ice Lotus again claimed innocence and ignorance… but Speaker noted this as a lie.

“Ok, well this is interesting – so, Ice Lotus, why don’t you tell us exactly who you think attacked your husband –and please, no lies – my good friend here can tell the difference” Cash inquired in a stern tone, not at all enjoying being misled and accused of wrong-doing.

Ice Lotus backed towards the door out of the bedroom, but Sunrise cut her off. The judge looked confused: “Lotus dear, what are they talking about?”

“Rider, darling – I don’t know what they’re talking about?! They’re just as nuts as Raneth!” Ice Lotus proclaimed. Speaker once again noted that what she had said was all lies, which Cash in turn relayed to the judge.

Struggling to get out of bed, the judge looked at both the circle and his wife angrily: “What the bloody hell is going on here! First my daughter is raped and now you’re saying my wife knows who tried to kill me, but didn’t try to kill me? As true as my name is Paragraph Rider, then I demand that someone explain what is going on here!?”

“Why is daddy yelling?” the colt from earlier innocently asked, peeking into the bedroom from the doorway behind Sunrise.

With everyone briefly distracted, Ice Lotus shoved Sunrise out of the way and ran for it – slamming the door on the way out, inadvertently hitting the young colt, who in turn collapsed on the wooden floor crying.

Speaker instantly leapt to the colt, alleviating his pain and checking to see if he was hurt – but he did so by standing in the middle of the doorway, so Cash couldn’t really get past him to give chase on Ice Lotus…

“Speaker, I know you meant well – but Ice Lotus just got away” Cash admonished.

Once things had calmed down and Speaker had fetched some more warm mead, Paragraph Rider and Cash talked. Apparently Rider and Lotus’s daughter, a mare by the name of Misty Shores, had been assaulted and raped a few days before the circle had showed up, two days prior to Rider getting attacked.

A quick charm-accelerated search of the house yielded nothing to incriminate Ice Lotus. Similarly, then Rider could only give a very rough description of his attacker, as it had been late night when he had been attacked: “Every day at the courthouse is a long day… and those ice-walker fools barely even know how to talk like civilized ponies – they’re hardly any help, but everyone else fled the city like cowards they are”
“Very well – and why exactly did you stay? I’m just curious – most ponies would dread living under anathema rule” Cash inquired politely.
The judge nursed his cup of warm mead and grunted through his thick beard: “Before Raneth came anyone with money could just bribe the king and make him dismiss any charges – you could get away with murder as long as you were on good terms with that freak and his family. When everyone left I approached Raneth, saying that I would stay if he would promise not to be corrupt like that – because then I too would leave, or at least quit my job in protest”

“Living up to your name I see” Cash said in jest.

Cracking a smile, Rider nodded: “I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a law-pony – and enforcing the law to the letter, if justly written, is the best way to do that”

Leaving the judge, with four ice-walkers posted outside his house with orders to capture his wife if she was to return, the three Solars sought out Paragraph Rider’s daughter Misty Shores. Rider had said that she had liked to go down to the docks and lounge around ever since she had returned from boarding school about a month or so ago.

With Rider’s description of his daughter it didn’t take the circle long to spot her sitting at the end of a long pier, gazing far into the distance over the cold waters of Malice Bay. She was a pretty young mare , with a long blonde mane with wavy hair and a mottled light-grey coat.

At first she really didn’t want to talk – when Cash tried to broach the subject of her rape, she really didn’t want to talk. Upon insisting, she said angrily: “Just go away – I already told those idiot ice-walkers about it – damn idiots couldn’t even write the incident report themselves!”

Opting to leave the young mare alone, the circle discussed its options. Cash didn’t want to bother Misty, but at the same time he felt it necessary to ingratiate himself with the judge, for the legal reforms and restructuring he had planned would require Paragraph Rider’s full cooperation and support. Speaker equally found it salient to solve the rape case since giving that extra ease of mind to the judge would help the healing process – Sunrise didn’t need any convincing, though she wasn’t sure how they were to approach Misty seeing as she didn’t really want to talk.

“Speaker, how are your art skills? Portrait painting?” Cash asked, with the kind of look on his face that just screamed in every way that he had just thought up a clever new plan.

Thinking for a moment, Speaker found himself surprised at the wealth of knowledge on that particular area that he had never realized that he possessed thanks to his first age memories: “First age level?”

With that, Cash returned the circle to Misty and this time didn’t let her brush him off that easy. Insisting that she should describe her rapist to them, so that Speaker could produce an image of the culprit that they could use to catch the pony.

Misty Shores looked somewhat incredulous and even reluctant first, but ultimately Cash’s powers of persuasion made it impossible for her just dismiss him – and evidently she lacked the rhetorical wisdom to come up with a sensible excuse – so with a heavy sigh and a rather miserable expression she began detailing what she remembered:

“…no, his jaw was more square, and his mane was uglier, more unkempt, ya like that, that’s him!” Misty proclaimed, gesturing wildly at the illusion Speaker had conjured before her.

Using a simple charm that allowed him to conjure illusory lights and shapes from pure essence, a charm that Speaker usually only used to make equally illusory 3D-models of things he planned on making or building to help ease his acts of creation, Speaker had made an illusory bust of a burly stallion who looked like one of the hundreds if not thousands of sailor-ponies that came and went with the salt-barges. However, one detail that Misty had mentioned, the tattoo of a large dog on the stallion’s left shoulder, changed everything:

“I think I know where he is…” Speaker mused, after looking at the illusion for a bit.

It had been back when Speaker and Shimmer had gone to the captured saboteurs at the south-port blockhouse. Another of the prisoners that had just come in while they had been there had sported such a tattoo… there was just one problem…

“What? Don’t tell me he’s already been brought before Raneth and executed for whatever you picked him up for?” Cash lamented to the icewalker in charge of the blockhouse at the south-end of the Plenilune harbor.

The barbarian pony gave Cash a confused look: “No chief, but we let him out this morning… we tossed him in the sticky-stinky room because he was drunk and shouting at other ponies – let him sleep it off”

As Cash translated the above for Speaker and Sunrise, Speaker groaned. On one hoof he was actually impressed that they hadn’t brought the pony before Raneth, but he didn’t look forward to trying to track a hungover sailor down in a city like Plenilune…

“Speaker, if they had to bring every publicly drunk sailor to Raneth he’d probably start executing the icewalkers simply for constantly disrupting his work” Sunrise noted.

Outside the blockhouse, the circle agreed to wait for Shimmer and Sully to return – they would be able to track this sailor pony much faster – and indeed, later that afternoon Shimmer and Sullen Hoof arrived, with Shimmer’s elsewhere den full of the saboteurs extended families… apparently quite a lot of them had jumped at the opportunity to get out from under the tyranny of their respective salt-kings.

“Hold on – you two convinced how many ponies to move to a city ruled by a Solar? This isn’t the scavenger lands, ponies here are actually afraid of anathema here…” Sunrise said, sounding just a bit incredulous.

Sullen Hoof bobbed his head side to side – his real expression difficult to tell from under his mask: “Well… not exactly – but you have to admit that Raneth’s main priority clearly isn’t simply making as much money as possible from the ponies he’s lording over and the salt they’re collecting – that’s what we sold them on”

Cash found this quite amusing for some reason, but noted that it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to ensure that the population of Plenilune started to see a slightly bigger share of the profits from the salt trade.

“Raneth will have to – if he wants to build up an arsenal here he’ll have to set up several new industries, from woodcutting and sawmills, to coal and iron production” Speaker noted, trying to map out the exact minimum chain of production needed to make these here ‘crossbows’ that Sullen Hoof had described.

Before going to Raneth with all their great ideas on how to properly retool Plenilune for large scale arms-production, the circle sought out Misty’s rapist.
Shimmer had a sniff in the south-port blockhouse’s disgustingly aptly named ‘sticky-stinky room’, which was apparently the one cell where drunkards who made trouble were always put in – the floor, walls… none of it appeared to have ever really been cleaned, which meant that Shimmer refused to get her nose anywhere near the place.

As half a dozen grumpy icewalkers began cleaning the room on the circle’s orders, Shimmer caught the scent of the pony they were looking for elsewhere in the blockhouse, and thus the hunt was on… and ended about two hundred yards away from the blockhouse, in a sailor flophouse on a dirty cot.

This is when things started to get weird: Bridge Water, the sailor pony in question, seemed very sad and very confused – indeed, that had apparently been why he had also been found drunk and disorderly… for he seemed under the impression that Misty Shores was in love with him. The really strange part was that he had a stack of letters addressed to him, signed by Misty according to him, which seemed to confirm her infatuation with him.

Looking at through the letters, Cash noticed a few that mentioned ‘helping you to freedom’ – to which the sailor freely admitted that Misty helped him break out of prison – though he also claimed quite adamantly that he should never have been sent there, for he had only been imprisoned because he had burped within earshot of some vindictive merchant who had pulled some strings with the old regime to get him sent away for good: “That’s why Misty started mailing me, see – she wrote here, that my innocence is what made her feel that we had such a great connection…” Bridge Water said in-between sobs.

Patting the tear-filled and muscular pony comfortingly on the shoulder, Sunrise bid him to continue.

“…then after she snuck me back into the city she told me to meet her at the north-end piers the next day – but she then claimed she didn’t know who I was, but I was so in love… I… I couldn’t help myself – she had been my only light in the darkness the last four months” Bridge Water exclaimed, breaking down in full on bawling.

Leaving Bridge Water to cry himself out, the circle conferred. Speaker said that Bridge Water hadn’t lied, at all, though that didn’t mean that Bridge Water hadn’t been tricked…

“Could Ice Lotus have done this?” Shimmer wondered, perplexed as to how a mother might do something that horrible to her own daughter.
Cash reluctantly nodded, his expression one of disgust: “Yes she could, I guess – but why?”

“…how could she have disguised herself as Misty and kept that up all the way from that prison back to the city?” Sully wondered, perplexed at how an old mortal mare could fake being a spry young one when traveling with an escaped convict.

This last question turned out to have a simple answer: Bridge Water said that the prison had patrols around the outer shoreline – apparently the prison was in the middle of a lake – so they had to be real quiet, plus she had used some kind of magic steed to the pull the sleigh, one as dark as night, that made no noise as it pulled them away…

“Ok, so Ice Lotus is a little more than what meets the eye… this is interesting” Cash mused, pondering where the mare might have hidden herself, if she hadn’t outright fled the city.

As much as Shimmer and Sully agreed that catching Ice Lotus was now a priority, then Sullen Hoof insisted that Bridge Water first be brought to Misty that he might repent and apologize before her. Cash also helped out by ‘removing’ Bridge Water’s infatuation with Misty Shores, and while that did initially worry Sunrise and Speaker that it might make the sailor pony simply rationalize his actions as not being his fault due to having been tricked, then it luckily resulted that didn’t happen: Bridge Water remained absolutely miserable over his actions, even more so now that he didn’t feel any positive emotions towards Misty, leaving him only with the terrible memories of his horrible act.

The meeting between the two at the judge’s home was… tense, to put it very mildly, for obvious reasons, after which Bridge Water was allowed to leave upon promising that he would get work on a barge and sail off, never to return again to Plenilune – but when the judge saw the letters… he was furious… outraged!

They were penned in his wife’s hoof-writing, though how anyone could tell skytongue runes apart from how other ponies wrote them was beyond Speaker – Cash confirmed it, upon reviewing a few cooking recipes Ice Lotus had written down in a book in the kitchen.

“Look at this – she wrote that I beat you, locked you away in the basement – we don’t even have a basement!” Paragraph Rider proclaimed, waving the letters at Misty, who was just as shocked and appalled.

Going through the letters, each more lurid and obscene than the other, some detailing what ‘Misty’ had supposedly wanted to do with Bridge Water once he returned, while others went into gruesome and quite fictional details about how cruel Paragraph Rider was, revealed a simple but monstrous plan.

“It’s obvious: The letters were meant to get Bridge Water to basically kill both of you – Rider out of hate, and Misty from anger over being ‘rejected’ – the only question is why? There is absolutely no motive here for Ice Lotus” Sullen Hoof wondered, even his profiling charms failing him somehow.

“Oh I can think of why” Misty said dejectedly, gently stroking the mane of the young colt sleeping in her lap as she sat on a nice fur-covered couch in the living room, the judge sitting next to her.

Paragraph Rider found this rather impossible: “No dear – she must have gone mad. There’s no possible…”

Misty Shores was nodding towards the colt in her lap.

The rest of the circle didn’t really know what was going on – well, Cash figured it out instantly thanks to his charms that let him understand the skytongue language, but he had also figured that it would be best to let the two talk it out.

“Rock? But… how?” Rider said confused, his bushy brows furrowing deeply.

Taking a deep breath and then sighing just as much, Cash gestured for the circle to leave with him – this was a private family matter, not something they needed to be part of…

In the kitchen, Cash noted that Shimmer and Sully should head out and try to track down Ice Lotus: “At this point I consider it a matter of honor to bring this monstrous mare to justice – we can’t let her get away with this”

Shimmer and Sully didn’t appear to be paying attention…

“They’re both listening in on the two talking in the living room, aren’t you?” Sunrise said in a disapproving tone.

Sully and Shimmer both nodded absentmindedly.

“Ok, spill” Cash said, too curious to not want to know. Speaker frowned and Sunrise.

As it turned out then Misty Shores had recently returned from a boarding school somewhere west of Plenilune, a ‘refuge’ for young mares who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. The young colt Rock was hers… and Ice Lotus had apparently threatened to poison Misty that she might miscarry if she hadn’t agreed to go there – and Paragraph Rider had known nothing of this, for as is custom in the north then Ice Lotus had been the master of the household when it came to internal matters, which was apparently also why she had tried to prevent it being known that Misty had slept with some random sailor one night and gotten a bun in the oven. It had all been to save the family's honor.

“There’s just one problem with this” Sullen Hoof explained, everyone paying rapt attention.

Removing his helmet and shaking his head, his horribly burnt face and similarly withered ears jiggling unnaturally: “…I can get wanting to protect the reputation of the household, but my profiling charms… that’s not what they’re getting… it’s like Ice Lotus is blocking them from working somehow”

“You would need a lot of essence to veil your intentions. Only an exalted pony would be able to counter a charm like that…” Speaker noted as he put his helmet away into elsewhere.

Nodding, Shimmer noted: “Whatever she is, she is powerful if she can veil herself from charms like that”

“I wouldn’t worry – my skills have only improved while in underworld. I learned cooking recipes from the ghosts of ancient chefs, and honed my fighting skills against more Deathknights than I cared to count – this mare can’t be any worse than that” Sullen Hoof confidently stated.

Bidding the judge and his estranged daughter good night, Shimmer and Sullen Hoof employed their sense-enhancing and tracking charms, leading the circle on a surprisingly short hunt: Ice Lotus’s scent led the circle to a locked and heavily reinforced cellar door in a filthy back alley, but all locks yielded to Sullen Hoof’s touch, and so the circle descended into what appeared to be the secret hideout of a… lovesick mare?

Author's Note

If you can tell where I got the inspiration for this little crime drama... then you have ok taste in police procedurals